What's the easiest way to copy a video DVD on MacOS without spending any money? (I.e., "don't say Toast".) It's not encrypted, it's a disc I made myself with iDVD, but I don't have the project file around any more. I just want to make a bit-for-bit clone of it.

a valid video dvd is a UDF data dvd with the right files on it: the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders. the point is just the udf file system, if you burn the folders with toast using 'mac + pc' you'll get a data dvd with the folders in it, but burning them using 'UDF' will give you a perfectly compatible video dvd.

Nope, sorry. Just because a disc is UDF, doesn't mean it's a valid video DVD. Additionally, the physical location and order of certain files must be maintained in order to be a valid DVD, hence hte following option in mkisofs:

-dvd-video Generate DVD-Video compliant UDF file system. This is done by sorting the order of the content of the appropriate files and by adding padding between the files if needed. Note that the sort- ing only works if the DVD-Video filenames include upper case characters only. Note that in order to get a DVD-Video compliant filesystem image, you need to prepare a DVD-Video compliant directory tree. This means you need to have a directory VIDEO_TS (all caps) in the root directory of the resulting DVD and you should have a directory AUDIO_TS. The directory VIDEO_TS needs to include all needed files (file names must be all caps) for a compliant DVD- Video filesystem.

That said, an image that's made by a real bit-for bit scan of the disc should work. I think that Disk Utility does the same thing as dd when ripping an image, so that ought to work, but I may be wrong. Certainly if you do create an image using dd and burn it using Disk Utility, the disc will work.

The disk image made from disk util will be a byte by byte copy if you make it from the image. You can make the image with dd as well and burn it with disk image. iDVD outputs disk images that are mountable which are recommended by apple to be burnt with disk util.

According to the mkisofs man page, the magic properties of a proper DVD video formatted image is the correct sort order for the files, and padding between them if necessary, so a bit for bit copy should work, in principle.

I've used dvdbackup to extract a DVD to a local file system, then dvd+rw-tools to write them out again, via said mkisofs option, and it's produced DVDs that have worked on standalone players. Er, under linux, so that's not much use to you, except as a data point for what ought to be possible.

I gather DVDBackup does the same sort of thing for the Mac, so if your burning software just uses mkisofs under the hood (odds are good), you might be ok.

I second the person who posted the step-by-step instructions for using Disk Utility. I have also performed this task many times, with success. The DVD is unencrypted, presumably non-commerical, so this route will work with no problem.

Were we dealing with an encrypted, commerical and >4.7 GB disc, then the Mac The Ripper > DVD2One > Toast route would need to be employed. No need here.

I believe you are looking for Mac the Ripper ("This product is made to backup DVDs you have legally purchased for personal use. MacTheRipper sets the disc's region code to '0' for region-free by default.")

If all you want to do is to rip a DVD to MP4 for playing later, use Handbrake.

I don't have the answer.I'm going to demonstrate my reading comprehension skills by not posting a description of how to convert to quicktime and then to CD and back to DVD.

However, http://www.videohelp.com has loads and loads of tutorials and tools and the like for dealing with DVDs and other video-related stuff. it's mostly PC, but they do have mac sections in both the tutorials and tools areas. It may be of some use for this, and will almost certainly be useful in the future.